Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday October 12, 2006 @08:33AM
from the technology-oxbow dept.

DECS writes "The series of articles Why Apple Will Change TV compared how Apple is poised for success in areas where Microsoft is currently failing. But circumstances are subject to change!
Just over a decade ago, Apple began facing serious legacy problems with its platform, with many parallels to today's Microsoft. Examining Apple's dramatic fall provides a series of notable platform lessons that no company should ignore.
A look back at the forgotten failure of Apple's PowerTalk:
Apple vs. Microsoft in the Enterprise"

Actually, I'd say Google models this pretty well. Products with a real current functionality, like GMail and Google Maps, succeed despite pushing the technological envelope. Products which push the envelope too hard, like their office suite, fail to catch fire. They keep looking for the boundary between "functional" and "futuristic", but there's almost always a market for the things (especially at the $0 price they charge for it) they make when they work.

Either way, Google is all about pushing the "constantly refine it" part. Web apps make for instantaneous, compatible upgrades.

GMail can't filter by custom headers- which makes it absolutely useless for subscribing to mailing lists.

The correct way to do this kind of thing would be to use automatic custom addresses.. i.e. username+uniqueID@gmail.com, then create a filter.

Your points, though valid for the most part, really don't indicate anything about pushing the envelope or not. For instance, your rant on MS live mapping.. I have never seen it, and if it is better, why do you think that it *is* better? Precisely because they se

Now, according to their lessons, google with all their betas must be a rightout disaster, shouldn't it?

Significantly different market. Google has the cash, time, patience, and talent to instead throw 100 products at the wall and see what sticks. Because we're talking web services and not hardware, they can accept a 20% success rate, or lower, and that would be fantastic.

That said, Google would do well to invest more energy in promoting the products that look on the verge of success, like mail. Already Yahoo has come out with a product that many think is now better than gmail (though I don't), in part because google's been dragging its feet with gmail, *and* it has stagnated for over a year.

All products ever made by all companies fall into one of those three catagories. Meaning, all products ever produced and sold are either catagory 1, 2, or 3.Those are not 3 lessons. It is the same lesson and I do not agree with the conclusion. If companies never tried something on the edge or what I consider catagory 1 or 2, we would have far less technology in the world right now. Catagory 1 and 2 can and do lead to number 3. Companies that only want to release number 3 are waiting for the trend to be

Google's not exactly staking the company's future on all its JavaScript toys. They still make something like 98% of their revenue on text, banner, Flash, and video ads. Their beta JavaScript apps just get Google lots of fluffy praise and attention from sites like Slashdot and Kuro5hin. [digg.com] It's fantastic marketing, but it's not like Google expects people to actually confide in Gmail and Docs for any productive purpose.

I'm having trouble finding examples. I'll admit, sometimes I have trouble figuring out where Google is making their money. Google Talk, for example-- there aren't ads in their chat client. Are they just making money from collecting info from my chats somehow? I'm not sure. But it works. I'm in the market for that service. It continues to be refined.

And Microsoft domintated the software industry by violating the "that doesn't quite work yet" part of rule 1. Windows 1 and 2 clearly were products that didn't quite work yet. Windows NT 3.0 and 3.1 didn't quite work yet.Rule #2 could also be stated "follow the trail that someone else blazes". Microsoft is very good at that. Microsoft had plenty of mail servers to copy when it was creating Exchange. They started by implementing other people's computer languages. They purchased a clone of CP/M to sell

Now, according to their lessons, google with all their betas must be a rightout disaster, shouldn't it?

I have yet to find a Google beta product that didn't work or that was difficult to understand exactly what it did. PowerTalk is another story. I never totally understood what it did (what it was supposed to do) and it didn't work. And I was a Mac power user (i.e. religious fanatic fanboy) at the time who would have bought almost anything Apple was selling within reason. And I didn't understand PowerTalk.

I'm all for learning from past mistakes, and granted, there are similarities between the ongoing PC-in-the-living-room war and past wars; enterprise market notably - but the factors of the two markets are vastly different. Both Microsoft and Apple has come a long way in the past ten years, both regarding compability, marketing and usability - so declaring a (potential) winner based on decade-old experience is as useful as putting the proverbial finger in the air.

Analog NTSC? Great, except that it'll stop working in a few years, and the quality is abysmal by modern standards.

ATSC? You get high-def, but you need an antenna, and even then you only get the big networks, which is a big step down to people used to 100+ channels of cable.

Clear QAM? It lets you use cable, so no antenna, but chances are you'll still only get the major networks, and it's arguably a greater pain in the ass than ATSC: many cable companies (Comcast, I'm looking at you) strip the metadata from their clear-QAM channels, making things like program guides really painful to use. And at the end of the day, you'll still be stuck with only the major broadcast networks, because those are the only ones that the cablecos are required to broadcast unencrypted. Everything else requires a proprietary converter box.

The solution would be CableCard, but there are still a lot of areas where you either can't get one, or are treated like shit and get a degraded level of service if you do. (And you pay several extra bucks for the privilege of renting the card.)

Given the state of the market right now, I wouldn't ship a computer with a TV tuner in it, either. If the FCC were to get its act together and really make CableCard the standard, and eliminate proprietary converter boxes, then I think you'd see an explosion in the types of set-top boxes and DVRs. I have no doubt Apple would be at the top of the list.

The answer is CableCARD. I want a media box that can replace the piece-of-shit Comcast DVR that reboots several times a week, littering my screen with dozens of "recorded for 0 hours 0 minutes" listings. HDTV compatibility is a must and I don't have the wherwithal to put up a giant antenna. So far the only box that comes close is the TiVo Series3, but that makes even the PlayStation 3 look cheap. ($800, plus rentals for two CableCARDs, plus $17 a month for TiVo service, adds up to over $1,000 in the first year alone.)

One alternative is just downloading all my TV shows from the iTunes Store (or BitTorrent, if I only want to watch popular stuff the day it comes out). To do that quickly you'll need a cable modem, and to get a cable modem for a decent price you might as well subscribe to some sort of cable, and that brings us around to square one again.

Well, the local broadcast digital channels are supposed to be transmitted as part of the lowest-cost cable package, but sometimes you don't get them unless you pay for "digital cable" service (because they'll randomly put a broadcast channel up on the higher portion of the band, which is blocked unless you pay for digital service or HSI). This is in violation of the FCC rules, but really, when has that stopped the cable companies?And unlike good 'ol analog NTSC, where the transmissions down the cable line w

Indeed. Remember, we're talking about Apple here. Apple customers expect things to "just work", and they aren't afraid to pay for it. That means whatever kind of TV they have, they should be able to plug it in and have it work, just like the Series3 TiVo - except Apple customers won't balk at paying an extra $600 for the feature the way many TiVo users do.

Given the state of the market right now, I wouldn't ship a computer with a TV tuner in it, either. If the FCC were to get its act together and really make CableCard the standard, and eliminate proprietary converter boxes, then I think you'd see an explosion in the types of set-top boxes and DVRs. I have no doubt Apple would be at the top of the list.

I think you're missing the point here. Apple doesn't want to play in the existing cable/satellite/OTA arenas. They are already heavily dominated by entrenched

And now apple wants to take over the living room by shipping macs without a TV tuner standard.

Digital cable tuners are supposed to include a FireWire output. All Macintosh computers have FireWire inputs. So if you're a subscriber, you should already have an appropriate tuner. Or are you talking about over-the-air?

Have you asked your satellite provider what you can do to get it enabled and working with your computer? Or has the satellite provider already refused and are you locked into long-term commitment so that you can't use the stick [wikipedia.org] of switching to the competitor?

Maybe there *are* no competitors. In the UK for example Sky have an absolute monopoly - you have to use their proprietary hardware (and closed encryption) to access their service and there are no other satellite services (unless you're into big dishes and foreign languages).It'd be interesting to see if the Apple TV thing works over here.. they'd have to provide content (something they failed to do with the ipod video - you still can't get videos on itunes outside the US), and hardware to interface with th

I think that's going to be a bit of a challenge for Apple outside of the US, at least for English language programming being sold to English speaking countries. For US programmes they'd either have to make a deal with the studios to get the international rights (which might get expensive, as selling the rights to Apple will dilute the value of the programmes in foreign markets) or they'll have to deal with each rights holder in each individual market they want to enter (which

There's only one competitor which is StarChoice and I don't believe their hardware is any better. I have ExpressVu in Ontario and the Canadian govt. doesn't allow American satellite companies to sell service here.

Well, yeah, I'm aware of that. I was responding to the parent who was talking about Sat boxes.

But I'd still like to know where the Firewire requirement for any type of box has been mandated. You say cable companies are regulated, but (and maybe I'm wrong in thinking this) I was under the impression that there's very little regulation in terms of cable equipment and requirements, to the point that even CableCARD is more or less optional.

It only applies to HD cable boxes (if your previous cable boxes were non-HD, that would be why they didn't include FireWire), but it's been in effect for ~2.5 years now. On mine, local HD channels and most non-HD digital-cable channels are available over FireWire as MPEG-2 transport streams with AC3 audio.

They did, but kept the Firewire. Firewire is essential if you want to connect a video camera to your Mac to download the home movie you just made, so Apple isn't going to dump it for a while - not until something better comes along.USB uses an error correcting protocol, and Firewire doesn't - firewire guarantees a steady transfer rate; USB, because of the error correction, does not. Thus, Firewire, or IEEE-1394, as it is otherwise known, is better for video transfer.

My mistake. Ihad just had a back and forth with Elegato about why none of their Mac DTT products (apart from a really expensive obsolescent one) supported firewire, but only USB 2. Their answer, and I quote:

"All DTT products that support EyeTV use USB 2.0 only. That means your Mac has to have built-in USB 2.0 ports...USB 2.0 products are what manufacturers currenly make, so that's what we support."

Actually, you can add USB 2 if you have a tower Mac, I had to do that to my G4 Dp 2 GB MDD last year, so I could connect a new printer at higher speed. Yeah "currently make", but they don't care about the legacy Macs that a lot of us use!

Verizon FiOS cable comes with Firewire AND USB (and serial, but I doubt you could get video over that). Of course they're all disabled. I've never heard of any cable company ever leaving the firewire port enabled. You can call and ask to have it enabled, but the first level techs will just tell you to reboot your box and mess with your TV settings, the second level techs will sound confused and not find it in their manual, and the third level tech will finally tell you "we don't do that, what were you th

Most broadcasts are encrypted and require proprietary cable/satellite boxes. OTA is only available in major city centers. And what the non-North American market? The future is digital distribution and Apple is right to focus on that.

I don't see how this will fit in to my system. I am happily running a DishNet DVR and am not going to buy a HD TV until the tech levels out, that and I bought a very nice JVC CRT set a few years back that will serve me for many years to come. So what will this do for me? Also, what about infringement on the UK's commercial station ITV?

I don't see how this will fit in to my system. I am happily running a DishNet DVR and am not going to buy a HD TV until the tech levels out, that and I bought a very nice JVC CRT set a few years back that will serve me for many years to come. So what will this do for me? Also, what about infringement on the UK's commercial station ITV?

First of all, Apple has said ITV is just a workingname and the final name needs to change.

Secondly, what appeals to me about this device is that it's pay-as-you consume, inste

"The series of articles Why Apple Will Change TV compared how Apple is poised for success in areas where Microsoft is currently failing. But circumstances are subject to change!"

What's with the excited exclamation mark? In something purporting to be a news story/blurb i usually expect a recitation of facts combined with a calm statement of opinion. Shouting makes it sound like either a rant or something intended as a dire warning. Are you a fan of microsoft who is vehemently denying that apple will actual

"The series of articles Why Apple Will Change TV compared how Apple is poised for success in areas where Microsoft is currently failing. But circumstances are subject to change!"What's with the excited exclamation mark? In something purporting to be a news story/blurb i usually expect a recitation of facts combined with a calm statement of opinion. Shouting makes it sound like either a rant or something intended as a dire warning. Are you a fan of microsoft who is vehemently denying that apple will actually

It seems to me that iTV is an extension of the iPod and iTunes. It solves one problem. How do you play any media that you on your computer in the study on your TV in your living room? Well if you have a laptop, you can just hook it up to the tv. But if you have a desktop, that's more of a problem. I think the vision of iTV is that either through wired or wireless LAN, it will receive the media from iTunes on your desktop or laptop. The success of this will really depend on pricing.

You're correct; or at least, that's how the Wikipedia article describes it -- you'll be able to put the iTV in your living room, and then stream content to it from iTunes on your Mac or PC.Sounds a little to me like the Airport Express was with audio (it was a box that you could attach to your stereo and then stream music to it, wirelessly) except that where the APE was purely "push" because it didn't have any interface on the recieving end, iTV will be able to "pull," browsing the libraries of the computer

I have three Airport Expresses with the audio ports enabled, and I can chose to stream music to any of them.

I can't see why they'd place a limit on the number of iTV devices you can have, although it may be that you'd need to pair a computer with a device, as there might not be enough bandwidth for a single computer to stream multiple movies to multiple devices simultaneously.

Another Apple project quickly forgotten was OpenDoc, which was something like OLE for Microsoft. With OpenDoc, at least the Cyberdog browser was developed (1996-97), together with object embedding capabilities on other software. It lasted just a bit.

OpenDoc was actually a group venture with IBM and a few others IIRC. In OS/2 and eComstation we still use it. Also, if you go to IBM's website (and Lenovo as well since they just imaged support section), look in the URL and you will see it's grabbing OpenDoc documents to display. It was a cool tech, just too bad it never took off. There were other parts of the "Open"XXXX standard they put together. OpenDoc just being the most widely used.

As an email gateway developer, I worked with Exchange since it's inception and I attempted to use AOCE. When I compare that experience with what's going on now, I reach a very different conclusion.

Exchange started out life in the X.400 world. (If memory serves, Microsoft bought an X.400 product from someone else and GUIfied it.) This meant that even before the advent of the Internet Connector you could connect to Exchange using "standard" X.400 protocols. (I say "standard" because X.400 is so large and messy that pretty much everyone who implemented it was forced to deviate from the specifications in one way or another.) Not easy, but doable, and more to the point, doable from any platform able to deploy an OSI network stack. As Exchange shifted towards SMTP things improved to the point where Exchange was able to connect to existing facilities with little effort. (The article is wrong, BTW, in claiming that modem SMTP was around when Exchange first shipped. It was around but Microsoft chose to ignore it.)

AOCE, OTOH, only provided vast, arcane, incomplete and poorly documented Mac-specific API. The underlying protocols weren't documented at all. We tried hard to figure how to interface with this mess, even sitting down to discuss our issues with Apple folks at one point, but eventually gave up. And I'm talking a group of people who developed successful gateways to X.400-1984, X.400-1988, cc:Mail, Microsoft Mail, Novell MHS, and GroupWise among others. Either we are fools who got incredibly lucky several times over, or AOCE was an unmitigated disaster. And I don't think we were lucky fools.

But Apple learned their lesson. As the article points out, they now leverage open standards whenever possible. You can talk to a lot of Apple's new stuff over protocol. Sure, the APis are still there, and some of them are pretty nasty, but in a lot of cases you don't have to use them. Apple is also very active in various standards organizations (I wish they had had more success with Bonjour in the IETF, but that's a different matter).

Microsoft, OTOH, has utterly failed to learn anything from their experience with Exchange. They still roll their own whenever possible. They don't document the protocols they use, only the APIs, and of course those are only available on Windoze. I used to see lots of Microsoft people at standards meetings but not so many any more.

Of course things can change, but once things are headed in a particular direction they tend to stay on that course, even if it is a bad one. Everything I see about Microsoft says to me that they are on the wrong course and aren't doing anywhere near enough reinvention to correct it. The exact opposite appears to be the case with Apple.

Interesting. If I recall correctly, AOCE/PowerTalk was presented at the 94 WWDC. A friend of mine attended, and shared what he had brought home with me. I saw the Demo video, and the docs. The API docs were huge - about two Inside Mac VI, I think. Incredible. The idea to empower _every_ application with e-mail capability was great in a way. As was many other ideas in AOCE/PowerTalk. But it was too complex and too inefficient.

However, what really killed it, IMO, was that one of the premises it was built upon, was soon to be shown as false. Few people seem to remember it, but at that time, it was not at all clear that the Internet would take over the world completely. Networking yes, but it was widely believed that the Internet would be an interim solution, soon to be replaced by ISO OSI protocols like TP4. And of course X.400/X.500 etc etc. In addition, Apple still had a dedication to AppleTalk. And there were existing proprietary mailsystems like QuickMail.

The idea was that PowerTalk users would have adapters that would enable a workstation to use legacy mail systems. In hindsight, this of course is a totally stupid idea, today we would put such gateway functionality at the mailserver. But with the following prevalence of plain SMTP/POP/IMAP mail, this capability would just constitute deadweight in the PowerTalk software.

The idea of an in-basket on the desktop, and send-mail capabilities in all applications is in a way something that we still miss today. And if you think about it, it is in a way just a GUI rendition of old Unix ideas, with the ~7mbox (= in-basket), and:w !mail user from vi.

In my opinion the user interface principles as they were strictly defined even up to AOCE are still unsurpassed, no interface has ever had the same completely natural feel. Windows, OS X, KDE, GNOME - nothing comes close to the interface as it was back in good old System 7.

I sure wish there was an open source project to take the lessons learned back then, and make a new X11 based GUI that puts them to effective use, while trying to retain some fundamental simplicity.

I have to say I have been very impressed by Apple's strategic manovering over the last five years or so. Whilst Sony and Microsoft has been clashing heads trying to use gaming machines as a trojan horse to become the digital hub of people's living rooms, Apple has quietly been putting together all the pieces it needs to do so in a much more sophisticated manner.

Personally, I don't think Steve Jobs is very interested in conquering the enterprise desktop these days, he's got his eyes fixed on potentially a much bigger pie - becoming the digital media hub of people's homes.

Personally, I don't think Steve Jobs is very interested in conquering the enterprise desktop these days, he's got his eyes fixed on potentially a much bigger pie - becoming the digital media hub of people's homes.

For years, Steve Jobs has mentioned this "digital media hub" and how it would be the next market place. In this interview [alwayson-network.com] he discusses it. With Apple, it appears they have bet their long term strategy around it.

Like the development of OS X, Apple is taking small steps towards that goal. For argume

Seriously, companies don't really learn from another company's trials and tribulations. At some point they all suffer from the same thing, which will cause them to experience "a downfall". This malady is:

"But we're [insert company name here]!"

I know it looks innocuous, but let's see that in action!

1988, IBM was having big problems with management bloat, a stagnant product line, and a poor customer experience. But if you asked someone there 'Why would I buy from you when I could buy from Compaq or some other less expensive, more innovative competitor?' the response was invariably, "But we're IBM!"

In 1998, SGI started shipping their coolest, most important product ever. The $15,000 Windows NT workstation. If you asked an executive at SGI 'Why would I pay $15000 for a Windows NT machine with a nice graphics card when I can build a whitebox with an Nvidia Riva TNT card for far less money?', the response was "But we're SGI!"

Today, ask a SUN exec 'Why should I pay $X for a solaris workstation when I can buy assemble a box for $500 running Linux that will do the same thing?' What do they say? "But we're SUN!"

It's been my experience that this becomes a problem at most sucessful companies, and if you pay attention, you'll see it's cyclical. The company adopts this mentality, loses customers, re-vamp's their product line, customer service, etc. Gains customers, becomes successful again, and ultimately repeats their mistakes and do the whole thing over again.

IBM doesn't have these problems now? SUN didn't have these problems in the nineties? As I see it, they had the same approach for all these times, some have the right marketing strategy to pull it through, and some apparently don't (SGI).

Kinda, but not as bad as IBM's PC division. In the mid-90s I was using a SPARCstation ELC -- one of the early SPARC machines, and it could run rings around a '286. Problem was, the '486s were just coming out, and could wipe the floor with an ELC (especially the dic^Hskless ones we had). Sun still had the edge in graphics, as long as you could get by with four-bit greyscale. The ELC had a 17" monitor with 1152x900 resolution, back when cutting-edge PCs were

Daniel Eran writes a lot of pro-mac articles which leads one to believe that you can't really take any of his opinions on Apple with much weight. The articles are really great to read if you are an Apple fan but, otherwise I can see how they might come off a little bit overly infatuated with Apple. If he could use more facts and cite support then I'd find them a little more insightful, as it is, they remind me of those persuasive writing assignments from English class, except all with an pro-Apple slant. Se

Actually the classical definition of marketing is "the action or business of promoting and selling products or services"Microsoft is a great promoter and seller, but rarely do they offer the best product in a class. When they do, it's usually because they've repressed any competition and there are no alternatives left. In other cases, they spend a lot of money building a solution for a market that doesn't matter: WinCE and WMA are two good examples. Lots of development and refinements in order to deliver PD

I don't think this article or/. entry adds value in any significant sense. Sure, it's great to consider in hindsight theis experience, but the criticism is unnecessary if not unfounded.

Apple addressed PowerTalk and OpenDoc (and various other initiatives) by moving to a completely different operating system. They saw the fundamental shortcomings of their ideas and their approaches and addressed them. Now, they are leveraging all the potential of OS X's *nix core in a myriad of ways.

iTV - $299, Mac Mini $599. A total of $900 minimum to stream upscaled movies to my TV from a device sitting in the next room. The next question is why on Earth would I want to do that? And how is it even the slightest bit different from what you can do today with an Xbox 360 + Windows Media Center.

Besides, it seems pretty dumb to have to have two machines turned on just to play movies. Something like a Viiv designed to sit under the TV makes more sense. Or a PS3. The movie should be stored on the device c

Do you have to buy a mac mini? Supposedly, the iTV will work with any mac or windows PC running iTunes 7 or above. It is different from an Xbox360 and Windows media center in that you have to run "windows".

The mac or PC does not have to be in the same room as the iTV and your TV since it can stream via WiFi. What am I missing here?

What you are missing is a Wireless 802.11n device. Apple is waiting for the new standard before releasing Itv. It will be the only way they will be able to have enough bandwidth between the Itv and the base computer to push across a broadcast quality picture.

Something like a Viiv designed to sit under the TV makes more sense. Or a PS3. The movie should be stored on the device connected to the TV, not beamed in from somewhere else. That doesn't make much sense at all.

That doesn't make any sense either. Why does a user have to own a traditional PC of any kind in order download or play movies? It's utterly pointless and pushes the cost of this solution close to $1000 whether you use an iTV or your iPod with some kind of dock.

Any device capable of playing movies should be capable of downloading and storing them too. Apple's solution is just half-assed. They'd be better off modding the Mac Mini with a TV out and a FrontRow interface so that the thing functions under the T

They'd be better off modding the Mac Mini with a TV out and a FrontRow interface so that the thing functions under the TV. It comes with a DVI interface (for HDTVs) and there's a $20 S-video cable for regular TVs. And it does happen to have "a FrontRow interface" (called...FrontRow...how did you guess?) with a remote control.Why does a user have to own a traditional PC of any kind in order download or play movies?How many people are there that want to download video off of the internet, but don't already ow

Who said they didn't? But if you have to forkout $299 for a device that plays streamed content, I know which one I'd pick if the choice is a kick ass console or some dumb terminal. Apple should strike a deal with Nintendo or something.

Besides, I'm saying that the whole arrangement is silly, whether it's an iTV or an XBox 360. Why does anyone need two devices turned on just to download and play a movie? The TIVO has a LAN and a harddrive. The PS3 can play mus

MSFT enjoyed a 7% increase in revenue last quarter alone, while AAPL's growth has been in the iPod area. There are no similarities between AAPL and MSFT in that front.

You probably didn't mean to phrase it that way, but you're totally right. Note the lack of Zune rumour sites, and general lack of enthusiasm over the Zune when compared to the iPod.

Now, as for the marketshare aregument: you're also right. Apple's marketshare has fallen since 1994/5. It has also improved since 1997/8. Moving past statistics, one can look at the Wall Street perception of Apple. In 1996-7 Wall Street saw Apple in a death spiral. Their market share was swirling down the toilet, they were losing ground in the education and enterprise sectors, and Windows 95/98 was generating a much bigger buzz than anything Apple was producing. Then Apple turned around: they got Jobs back at the helm, released a product that created a media sensation (iMac -- for examples, look at Newsweek's and Time's coverage of it) and started inching away from the edge of a financial cliff. Following that with Mac OS X, and the iPod, Wall Streets prediction of Apple's future is pretty damn bright.

You mention Microsoft. I say don't bother. They don't really compete. Apple makes personal computers and iPods. Microsoft makes an operating system and a game console (and soon another iPod "killer"). With the exception of the forthcoming Zune, there's not really much competition between the two. People cite Mac OS X as competing against Windows -- often referencing Vista -- but it's not really. Mac OS X only runs on Macs (officially.) Windows runs on commodity hardware. Apple makes Mac OS X to bundle with their hardware. Microsoft makes Windows because it's the cornerstone of their business. There's far less competition than people think.

.... but they ARE competing for mindshare... and right now Apple is winning hands down. They seem to have the midas touch where everything they come out with turns to gold. Currently, Microsoft is the exact opposite.
An important point to note in the article is how the author discusses how much of Microsoft's monopoly is attributed to customers choosing an MS product over a competitors. They may have 95% market share but its also true that 95% of the time Windows is sold, there's no choice involved. You ge

One thing I find noteworthy here is that, if Microsoft were really were making a business out of selling a superior OS, Apple wouldn't really be a threat to them-- at least not any more than Dell is a threat to Microsoft for offering Wordperfect with their computers. In a lot of ways, Apple's switch to Intel should have been a happy day for Microsoft, since it essentially turned Apple into another vendor of hardware for which Windows could be sold.

The real problem is, "producing superior operating systems" hasn't been Microsoft's core business for years now. Instead they've been riding off of vendor lock-in. And so, just like W.I.N.E., Apple is a threat to Microsoft simply by giving users an option of running Photoshop (and other software not present on open-source operating systems) without buying Windows. The mere existence of an alternative is a serious threat to Microsoft's business model, a model which consists mainly of vendor lock-in. Microsoft can't afford to let users have any choice, or they'll lose market share.

They may have 95% market share but its also true that 95% of the time Windows is sold, there's no choice involved. You get it preinstalled on your new computer. Whereas Apple's minute market share is completely derived from people exercising choice. You have to actually choose to buy a mac.

WTF are you talking about?

Every single home user that bought a PC with Windows made a choice to not buy a Mac with OSX and the same the other direction. Both platforms are readily available for anyone in the world to cho

Yep, I know. A company that has consistently made a profit on across all product line is a terrible company, while a company that consistently has product line that may never make a profit, to they point that they hide the p/l statements of specific product lines, is a wonderful success.

The point of this article, and the lesson from countless years of business case studies, is that mature products are easily reproduced by cut rate competitors, and the only way to stay ahead of those competitors is to con

MS has faltered in many of these ventures, and the only success is the game market.

Since Microsoft has lost billions of dollars over the past few years in the game console market with their Xbox line, and just recently posted another $1.6 billion loss in that division, I'd say the word success isn't relevant in this market either.

I hate to break it to YOU, but Apple's computer products are NOT going downhill. Apple's computer sales have been steadily higher in sheer numbers, year over year, for the last four years, I think, running.There is no doubt that the iPod is the higher profile product, but while that may eclipse the computer side for many, it doesn't mean the computer sales are tanking. Quite the contrary, Apple's share of the portable market is up to almost 12%, and the last market share figures show their share has incre

Go look at those figures then, they still show a growth in revenue of over 100%. And even accounting for "accounting tricks" you still can't argue with over a thousand percent growth! My point is still good - Apple is NOT in decline no matter how you want to look at it.

The only reason OS X is based on NeXTstep is because part of Jobs' price for returning to Apple was to "erase" the Next failure. The core Apple faithful will buy just about anything Jobs comes up with and couldn't care less about "Unixy" features in their OS.